Welcome back to a new year and a new semester at Duke. I hope you enjoyed a restful holiday and have been energized for your return to our classrooms, libraries, laboratories, and offices.  

The close of 2015 brought us much to celebrate. Seniors Jay Ruckelshaus and Laura Roberts were named Rhodes Scholars, and Wills Rooney was awarded a Mitchell Scholarship. Duke’s newest Nobel laureate, James B. Duke Professor of Biochemistry Paul Modrich, traveled to Sweden to accept his Nobel Prize amid suitable fanfare from King Carl XVI Gustav. The Duke football team beat Indiana in overtime in the Pinstripe Bowl in Yankee Stadium—Duke’s first bowl win since 1961—after Duke posted a 98% graduation success rate among all student-athletes. 

And there is much to look forward to in 2016. The reopening of our grand spaces, Duke Chapel and the West Union, will signal a new commitment to our campus and the community we find here. 

The campus dialogue sparked last semester by the national debate about issues around race, diversity and inclusion will continue in the months ahead. We will be looking to better understand and address the many facets of what it means to be a member of a diverse learning community, especially one in which the forces of history, culture and class collide on a regular basis. The Task Force on Bias and Hate Issues, chaired by Deans Kelly Brownell and Linda Burton, and including broad representation from the Duke community, will bring further clarity to the university’s policies and practices.  Likewise, the forthcoming launch of a new online gateway to diversity and inclusion initiatives on campus will provide everyone with information and access to the resources currently available at Duke.  And I look forward to the recommendations of the advisory committee that will identify an appropriate and meaningful memorial to Julian Abele, the architect of East and West Campuses.

As we turn the page on 2015, I invite you to take a look at Document Duke 360.  In 60 seconds, you’ll see a year in the life of our university flash by in all its quirky energy and creativity, in bursts of solitary focus and communal joy. I thank you for everything you contributed to Duke in 2015 and look forward to a new year of shared learning and purpose. 

Sincerely,

Richard Brodhead

President